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My Experience at Apple

ex-apple-engineer.medium.com

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Re: My Experience at Apple

#491

Post by hinkley »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #212

Things new engineers don't know, but should: 1. HR doesn't work for you; they work to minimize liability for the company. If HR thinks the best way to accomplish that is to destroy your life, that's exactly what they will do. 2. Many SV companies, as well as groups within large, respected SV companies, only survive through exploitation. They exploit their customers, their workforce, or both. Exploitation means obtain…

3. After any major organizational change, such as a merger, any promises made by the diminished chain command are not enforceable. What you won't see is that some of those promises are encouraged by the new chain of command in order to maintain calm.

Eventually the one making the promises will either not be around or find that they don't have the resources to fulfill the promise. They may quit when they figure this out, if they haven't already been let go once they've established their status as scapegoat.

If something matters to you, make sure you get the new bosses to announce it in front of people. Be aware that you should have already thought at least briefly about the wording of your resignation letter prior to doing this.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#492

Post by Balgair »

cunac wrote: post #458
mcny wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you supposed to do if your employment contract says you’re exempt (meaning no overtime pay)?

I have a very simple philosophy `no pay no work`. It is about having self respect.

'If you're good at something, never do it for free'

Re: My Experience at Apple

#493

Post by fortran77 »

GloriousKoji wrote: post #99
exApple-anon wrote: post #9

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. Unlike others, I actually find this story fairly believable. When I first joined Apple, straight out of college - a good program, top three in the country - I was abused similarly. I joined a team that was on a project behind schedule. Our manager was a brusque, no-nonsense sort of dude. But he clearly had anger problems. On the team were 2 senior engineers, me, and a junior e…

I also worked for Apple and I had a very similar experience. Management was brutal and abusive from my immediate manager to all the way up to and including the VP level. For example even though vacation hours were accrued I never got to use them unless I wanted to endure the verbal backlash of abandoning the team and my responsibilities. When the holidays came around the director would email everyone reminding us the…

> everyone was merged into another team working on something similar with new management. Meet the new boss same as the old boss

I worked for Apple before Jobs died. He'd frequently have several teams working on the exact same thing, in secret, and then pick the team that met his goals the best. Sometimes the "losers" would be merged into the "winning" team, but never treated well by the winners.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#494

Post by hinkley »

pembrook wrote: post #455
dreamcompiler wrote: post #212

Things new engineers don't know, but should: 1. HR doesn't work for you; they work to minimize liability for the company. If HR thinks the best way to accomplish that is to destroy your life, that's exactly what they will do. 2. Many SV companies, as well as groups within large, respected SV companies, only survive through exploitation. They exploit their customers, their workforce, or both. Exploitation means obtain…

You’re correct on point 1, but point 2 is overly pessimistic. The fact that the economy grows every year is proof alone that companies on the whole are generating value and not just exploiting people. The economy is not a zero sum game. The truth is, all companies, no matter how cool their branding is, are just a collection of mostly average people. The larger the company, the more average the workforce will be. This…

The fact that income inequality goes up every year says you're wrong about point 2.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#495

Post by hinkley »

penguin_booze wrote: post #252
dreamcompiler wrote: post #212

Things new engineers don't know, but should: 1. HR doesn't work for you; they work to minimize liability for the company. If HR thinks the best way to accomplish that is to destroy your life, that's exactly what they will do. 2. Many SV companies, as well as groups within large, respected SV companies, only survive through exploitation. They exploit their customers, their workforce, or both. Exploitation means obtain…

HR doesn't work for you That's what I've learned too. HR is an extension of the legal department. To be fair, their true job is to treat humans as resources. These days, they're sometimes rebranded as the "People Team"!

"People Team," in the grand tradition of, "Soylent Green is made of people!"

Re: My Experience at Apple

#496

Post by Balgair »

dvtrn wrote: post #331
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can empathize with your story. I once landed what I thought would be my dream job at my dream company. I quickly discovered that the position was open because all of the previous team had quit due to the extreme toxicity. > The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard Be careful about getting jaded and cynical. This is far from a universal truth in the tech industry. I've hired a few ex-FA…

The last few jobs I’ve had were glowing from the interviews and believe me I asked some very tough questions I hoped would be revealing enough without torpedoing my candidacy. Every one of them: as soon as I started, the foundational person of the team quit, you know the guy or gal who burned themselves out building the process. Fixing all the cruft and actually trying to unfuck everything but leaving scant documenta…

>As a result I had to “drink from the water hose” constantly.

I've only ever heard that phrase as 'drinking from the fire hose', I didn't know that even a water/garden hose was considered too much.

I think I need to find a better ... career (?)

Re: My Experience at Apple

#497

Post by hinkley »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #258
throwaway29303 wrote: post #193

This is awful. I'm sorry that happened to you. However, If Apple refuse to take actions, I will interview with major media outlets describing the experience in more details and I will release a list of all individuals involved from senior management to the HR director and all the evidence as public record. You're wasting your time if you think they're going to do anything with this kind of approach. Get a lawyer firs…

In NY (and, I think, California), that's illegal. I found this out, because at the company at which I worked, managers kept making verbal commitments, then gaslighting me about them. I could never get them to commit in writing, and my own "reflection" emails (the standard advice about this) were worthless. I considered walking around with a little digital recorder in my pocket. But many states have explicit laws agai…

By reflection emails you mean where you summarize what was said and try to get the other person to confirm them?

I think those only work if you disregard any statements that don't get confirmed, and/or you twist the statements into action items that you don't prioritize until they confirm them.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#498

Post by greggman3 »

j1elo wrote: post #482
mcny wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you supposed to do if your employment contract says you’re exempt (meaning no overtime pay)?

I even had to look for what it means to "be exempt". > Exempt employees stand in contrast to non-exempt employees, which are paid minimum wage and overtime above the standard 40-hour workweek. Wow if I had heard this in a random bar discussion I would called it complete and utter bullshit. The more I read HN the more it feels like being a worker in the US is like riding a horse through the wild west; anything can hap…

FYI, it goes both ways. An exempt employee chooses their own hours. If the company tries to dock them for working less they'd immediately become non-exempt.

Re: My Experience at Apple

#499

Post by refulgentis »

frongpik wrote: post #485
alexc9 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Worked for 5 companies, 2 were ruled by fear culture (including an explicit stack ranking of employees every 2 quarters, with the bottom ones being fired), one by desperation, one by... inertia maybe. The 5th is Google. Still can't figure out what it's ruled by exactly, but absolutely no fear, yet it mostly works. That's why I'm sticking around, I guess. I've moved teams and orgs quite a bit, so I don't t…

At least when I was there, google seemed like an island with melancholic, but smart and kind pandas who never had to compete for food, for the food was brought to them by a ferry, and never had to do any work, unless they had a spark of curiosity that made them explore an interesting rock or mess with sand on the beach. All pandas were consistently exceeding expectations, even if they slept on a tree most of the day.

LOL, you nailed it, thank you very much

Re: My Experience at Apple

#500

Post by ed25519FUUU »

hinkley wrote: post #491
dreamcompiler wrote: post #212

Things new engineers don't know, but should: 1. HR doesn't work for you; they work to minimize liability for the company. If HR thinks the best way to accomplish that is to destroy your life, that's exactly what they will do. 2. Many SV companies, as well as groups within large, respected SV companies, only survive through exploitation. They exploit their customers, their workforce, or both. Exploitation means obtain…

3. After any major organizational change, such as a merger, any promises made by the diminished chain command are not enforceable. What you won't see is that some of those promises are encouraged by the new chain of command in order to maintain calm. Eventually the one making the promises will either not be around or find that they don't have the resources to fulfill the promise. They may quit when they figure this o…

> If something matters to you, make sure you get the new bosses to announce it in front of people.

In writing.

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